


Different

by Griffindork



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F, a LOT of grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-12 22:49:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20163913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Griffindork/pseuds/Griffindork
Summary: “Just thought you should know for when they get back. Poor Vanessa saw it all. And Tracy.” He catches the way Chas’ mouth drops in pity as she turns to leave. “Just. Try not to be too awkward for them for tonight.”





	Different

The enemy’s are advancing around him and he can feel his heart thudding against his ribs. He slides behind a truck just as a bullet grazes over his head. Lips sealed together, he holds his breath and glances over the top of his cover, takes out an enemy as he runs to cover and then he ducks back down again.

“Nice.” Crackles over his headset and Noah smiles.

“Are you actually gonna take anyone out?” Noah asks and Samson mutters something back that Noah knows would make Lydia wrap a teatowel round his head. “Language.” Noah chides and he snorts loudly at the tirade he gets back.

He straightens then, stilling as he and Samson work through the rest of the compound methodically and as they’re waiting for the next compound to load Noah glances at his phone. No messages. Usually Ryan’d’ve messaged him by now, some gross meme that would make Vanessa pull that scrunched up, disgusted look. 

“If you’re so good how come my stats are higher than yours?” Samson’s voice filters smugly through the heavy beat of the music.

“Eh?” Noah grunts, glancing back up and spotting Samson’s name at the top of the leader board. “How’d you do that?”

“Skill init.” Samson laughs loudly and smugly.

“Whatever.” Noah mutters, throwing his phone to the side and sitting closer to the edge of his bed as the gates begin to open. He’s just about to roll into cover when his door bursts open and Chas stands there, smiling with a little too much force to be comforting.

He stalls and he’s shot where he stands and his screen goes red as he’s whipped out of the contest. Samson’s laugh beats louder than the drum of music between them.  
“Fuck off.” Noah snaps.

“Er.” Chas says, her arms come to fold over her chest as she looks down at him. “Excuse me?”

“Not you.” Noah rolls his eyes, ripping his headset off just as Samson’s voice filters a patronising ‘language’. “What do you want?”

“There’s been an accident love.” She steps a little further into his room, arms dropping and she sways a bit like his mum does when she doesn’t quite know how to approach something. Noah feels his stomach flip violently and he looks to her for clarity, for her to say something that will stop thoughts of his mum in a hospital bed and images of pipes and IV lines and monitors growing out of her like limbs. “Your mums fine. She’s with Vanessa.” She must see it in his face because it comes out in a rush, almost mangled together in a single breath. “But Frank’s dead.”

“Frank?”

“Yeah.” Chas nods, grimacing.

He feels a bit like he’s been dangled over a cliff and then yanked back at the last second. His heart’s still thumping a panicked rhythm in his chest and he pulls in a lung full to stop the kind-of shaky feeling at the tips of his fingers. “Right.” He says, shrugging.

“Just thought you should know for when they get back. Poor Vanessa saw it all. And Tracy.” He catches the way Chas’ mouth drops in pity as she turns to leave. “Just. Try not to be too awkward for them for tonight.”

She’s gone then, door shutting tightly behind her, and he knows by awkward she means hard and argumentative and unbending. He huffs in annoyance. Like she can talk about being awkward.

“What was that?” Samson asks as he picks up his headset again. Noah’s mind flashes to Vanessa’s perpetually sunny disposition and he shrugs it off quickly, though Samson can’t see it.

“Nothing.” He answers.

-

It’s late when the lock clicks downstairs, the pub long since closed for the night. Noah hasn’t been listening but he also couldn’t get to sleep either and he couldn’t really concentrate on enemy targets and he was sick of hearing Samson’s laughter so instead he’d taken to scrolling endlessly. There’d been a few articles about what’d happened earlier. He’d skimmed a few but it all blurred together with quotes of ‘bloodcurdling screams’ and ‘friend of the family comforting victims daughters’ and suspicions about the factory owners. Noah thinks about Jai as the man who used to play football with him and the man who almost killed his mum and he wouldn’t really put it past him. But then again it’s not really a rare thing for his mums ex’s to want her dead so maybe he had nothing to do with it.

The footsteps slowly growing louder the closer they get to his door pulls him out of his thoughts and he sits up as their shadows grow under his door before they shrink again. There’s silence and he waits, not quite sure what he’s expecting but the sound of Chas’ voice, too sharp to really accomplish the whisper she attempts, filters through. 

“Everything okay?”

“Not really babe.” His mums voice answers, deep where Chas’ is high. “Sorry.” She sighs almost immediately. “Yeah. We’re just gonna. Get a shower.” Her voice hitches somewhere along the way and he hears Chas hum comfortingly and he can almost picture them hugging in the dark. “Stick of smoke.” She laughs humourlessly.

“Alright. Come get us if you need anything.” Chas’ shadow passes his door again and her door closes in a muffled kind of way that’s foreign to this house, like she’s walking on eggshells not to make a sound. The silence almost feels louder though and it settles like a bug in his bed, leaving him itchy. He wants to just see his mum, see her stood there in front of him because something has felt a little disjointed ever since Chas’ anxiety invoked images of his mum kept living by machines he doesn’t understand. His feet hit the floor softly and he pads to his door, listens for a second to the stillness and then pulls it open just a crack.

They’re stood closer than he thought they would be and it almost makes him pull back when Vanessa’s eyes find him. But she’s looking right through him and he realises she’s not looking at him, probably can’t even make out his outline in her unfocused gaze. His mum’s muttering to her, something senseless and light but he can hear a note of worry that laces her voice. It wraps itself around her movements too as she shepherds Vanessa towards the bathroom, a bit like an overly anxious sheep dog. He notes the smudges of black soot that mark their faces, one particularly long one along Vanessa’s forehead, like she’s pushed her hair away from her face and left the evidence behind. There’s bigger marks left on both their sides, like they’ve been holding something filthy and it’s imprinted itself onto them tightly. His mum doesn’t even notice him stood there, wrapped up as she is, every inch of her directed towards Vanessa; her gaze soft and worried and her touch sure and strong. And then they’re gone, the bathroom door closed with the same gentleness his mum bestowed on Vanessa.

Sometimes Noah is still a bit shocked at the amount of love his mum has for the vet. Sometimes he thinks about how she was right, when she said this was different, how he doesn't remember her being like this before and even Debbie seems to be oddly optimistic about them. He thinks about how Ryan had assumed they'd been together for years when he bumped into their lives. But then Noah supposes that Ryan is still to see the worst their mum can be so maybe he wont put much stock in that.

It's still different though.

The water switches on and Noah tries to get to sleep.

-

That weird kind of uncomfortable silence still takes over the pub but Noah doesn’t see hide nor hair of his mum or Vanessa. He gets roped into looking after Johnny and Moses for most of the day by Chas though, who looks tired and drained and he takes them to the park. If he squints in the distance he can just see tendrils of smoke still rising into the clouds.

Johnny and Moses don’t even seem to notice anything’s different. They run between the roundabout and the swings and the slide and they get absolutely filthy in the sandpit but it makes Noah feel completely normal to be shadowing them and laughing when Johnny pushes Moses over. He makes them apologise to each other and it’s all sorted and he kind of wishes it’d remain that simple for them but he doesn’t even think Johnny knows his granddad is dead and just for that he lets Johnny get one more turn on the slide before he takes them back.

That denseness of the pub hits him square in the chest as he shimmies the boys out of their shoes and into the back room. There’s a clattering coming from the kitchen and when Noah pokes his head around Vanessa is doing something. He’s not sure what and the mess seems disordered and haphazard. Johnny runs right into her legs, jabbering about the castle they’d built and the moat Noah has dug around it. Moses isn’t far behind, interjecting with his own stories of the sword fight they’d had with sticks. Vanessa looks down at them but she doesn’t smile like she usually does, there’s no excited chatter from her as she joins in, she doesn’t bend down to meet them. Her jaw just clicks shut and her smile barley even lifts her lips, it doesn’t meet her eyes but she hugs them both back and tells them their tea is almost ready so they’d better go wash their hands.

Noah follows behind them as they clamber up the stairs. He can’t help but feel relief at the noise they create, feels it break something that had been building ominously in him the more he stayed in the pub. When they come back down he directs Moses and Johnny back into the back room and he looks up just in time to see Vanessa putting the plates onto the table, a little heavy handed.

Johnny and Moses race to their seats and dig in immediately. They make a mess of themselves and the table before Noah’s even taken his own seat. He counts quickly and looks to Vanessa, forehead crumpling in confusion.

“You not eating?” He asks.

“Not hungry.” Her voice sounds tight and restrained, almost like she’s biting it back. She meets his eyes and he’s not sure what she sees there but she blinks, attempts to smile again and says, “I’ll eat with your mum later.”

And it’s weird. Because she usually eats with them when his mum is working late, she usually spends the night with the boys playing some game or other and she’s always present. But right now she just stands in the kitchen, looking blankly out of the window and she doesn’t even notice when they boys are done eating. They’re about to start fighting at the table and she doesn’t even seem to notice their growing discontent. Noah seats them in front of the TV and dithers for a moment, looking between the empty plates on the table and Vanessa, still unmoving, muscles in her back taught.

"Be good." He mutters to the boys but they're far too engrossed to pay him any mind.

He clears the table silently, trying not to disturb her where she stands. He’s just putting the plates down when she turns to him, arms folded around herself.

“You didn’t have to do that love.” She tries to smile again and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen her like this, sun extinguished behind dark grey, like the rains about to fall but it just won’t come.

“I know.” He nods. He slides past her and pushes the chairs back under the table, watching Johnny and Moses sing something about muddy puddles and Vanessa doesn’t turn from where she’d faced him before. He picks up a mucky fork he’d missed and puts it on the pile he’d created a moment before. When he turns back Vanessa’s eyes have taken on that unseeing fog again and he shuffles uncomfortably, looking around, almost desperately for something, maybe his mum to come and care for her. But she’s busy trying to keep the pub afloat between keeping Vanessa afloat and the kids from killing each other.

He looks to Vanessa again and she almost looks like she’s drowning, stood there, body hard and tense like he’s never seen her before. It doesn’t suit her, the frown lines on her face or the height her shoulders have raised to to keep herself standing. Moses and Johnny squeal together in sync and it seems to pierce whatever cloud had overcome her.

“Boys.” She warns sharply.

They shut up, attention pulled in again by Peppa. And Vanessa starts to wash up silently. She scrubs a little too hard at the plates and by the redness of her hands the water is too hot but Noah just grabs a tea towel and starts to dry. They work in silence and that’s odd enough as it is. Vanessa usually tries to get something of a conversation out of him before she gives up, but she always annoyingly tries. He can't count how many times he'd wished for her to just stop trying but now she's not actually trying it sets him on edge. She doesn’t even attempt it, her jaw just stays clamped. It feels wrong and words bubble up despite himself.

“I’m sorry.” Vanessa’s shoulder’s hitch higher as his voice meets her ears but she nods at least, turning to see him. “About your dad.” He clarifies and feels stupid because of it.

“Thanks.” Her voice cracks but she swallows it down almost immediately. Throat working like it’s stuck uncomfortably.

For a moment he feels like he should reach out to her and he can almost see himself patting her awkwardly like a dog, so he flexes his fingers instead, staring at her as she zones out again. "He was a good man."

“Good news babe.” He hears his mums voice as the noise from the pub grows and then dies again as she shuts the door behind her. “Bob agreed to close tonight so I am all yours.”  
Her voice doesn’t betray her worry but Noah watches her eyes rake over Vanessa and catalogue every difference in her demeanour. She gravitates almost helpless to her side and wraps an arm around her securely. Vanessa sinks into it, ducking into her side without even a second thought, and her head turns almost like she’s trying to hide and then thinks better of it, pulling back ever so slightly but not out of his mums hold.

“All washed up already?” She asks lightly, arm squeezing.

“Noah helped.”

His mums eyes meet his, almost surprised but then she winks at him. “He’s a good lad sometimes.”

“Cheers.” He grunts.

“Like you then.” Vanessa tries but it falls a bit flat when the joke doesn’t quite manage to crack through the mangled mess of grief and worry that clouds the air. “We should wash the boys though.” She heaves eventually and they all turn to look at the toddlers still sat on the couch, more spaghetti bolognese than human.

Vanessa ducks out of his mums hold then, clapping her hands together and trying to be as excited as the boys are when she mentions bath time, but she can’t quite manage it. Noah doesn’t get a second look as his mum follows them out of the room, never more than two steps away from Vanessa. He can’t help but feel like she’s waiting for Vanessa to fall.

-

When he comes down later to get a drink Vanessa is tucked so securely into his mums arms where they’ve sunk into the couch that he feels a bit like he’s intruding. They don’t notice him and he’s trying to sneak back out when Vanessa’s heavy breaths meet his ears and he hears a snore emit from his mum. Their fingers are interlocked, resting on his mums stomach and he eyes the way his mums neck is bent at an uncomfortable angle to rest on top of Vanessa’s. He ducks out into the hallway and he’s halfway up the stairs before he thinks better of it, looking back towards the door and willing there to be noises of movement. But there’s nothing but that omnipresent silence again.

He growls to himself, leaving his drink on the stairs and making his way back down. As he pushes in again he can just make out the sounds of the pub winding down beyond the other door. There’s no lights on beyond the lamp in the corner and even that’s on a timer and the TV’s long since timed itself to turn off so he doesn’t really know how long they’ve been asleep but there’s still something like guilt that tugs at him as he remembers the bags under Vanessa’s eyes earlier in the day. He taps at his mums shoulder long enough to bypass her reluctance to wake up and for her eyes to meet his blearily.

“Y’alright, kid?” Her voice is slurred and she winces as she straightens her head.

“Thought you’d rather sleep in a bed.” He shrugs, pulling back.

“Yeah. Thanks, babe.” She nods and smiles and, “Ness,” she nudges. “Wake up darlin’.”

-

The next time he sees Vanessa she has a red mark on her cheek. It doesn’t look like it’ll bruise but it looks maybe like it stings. There’s an air of annoyance about his mum as she brings a pack of peas to rest on Vanessa’s cheek. They don’t notice him and he goes to his bedroom.

They go out for a walk that night and he doesn’t see them at all for the rest of the day but he hears them getting Johnny and Moses ready for bed.

When he walks down the next morning there’s no one in the back room and it’s weird in this pub that it’s empty, the amount of people rattling around in it. He makes himself breakfast and when he gets to the table the Hotton Courrier is sat folded on the top. There’s a picture on it of two people and the top a woman’s wearing catches his eye enough for him to unfold it and see.

It’s Vanessa, grinning at the camera with Frank’s arm around her waist below a headline that reads ‘Factory victim was convicted con man’. It’s curiosity more than anything that has him flipping and reading the article and a lot of it’s untrue but it prefaces Vanessa with ‘newly reinstated local vet’ and labels Frank as a serial offender and he’s sure the ‘local pub owner’ they say has been helping out is supposed to be his mum. It doesn’t say it outright but the article hedges its bets towards Frank being the robber and the cause of the fire and he closes the paper without reading further than that. It doesn’t really bother him whether Frank did it or not but he supposes Vanessa wouldn’t like to read all that about her dad so he leaves his cereal uneaten and heads out barefoot to the big bin.

Whoever it was that brought that paper into the house is an idiot, he resolves. 

“Noah?”

He turns slowly and grimaces as Chas and his mum stare at him, brows furrowed in twin confusion. For a moment he’s surprised to see her here, detached from Vanessa’s side. 

“What are you doing out here half dressed?”

He looks down at his boxers still a bit twisted from sleep and the old t-shirt he’d thrown on to come downstairs. They wait for him to reply but he just shrugs and points it he bin with the paper.

“Is that today’s?” Chas asks, holding her hand out. “I haven’t read it yet don’t throw it away.”

“It’s just a load of rubbish.”

“Well I want to read that rubbish.” Chas insists, holding her hand out. “Sent Bear out to get it earlier just to get him out of the way for a bit.”

“Bear.” Noah nods. Sounds about right that idiot had something to do with it.

“Well.” His mum edges, she nods her head to Chas. “Give the woman her rubbish. And give me the crossword.”

She nudges him with her hip and he decides he doesn’t care anymore and hands it over to Chas’s waiting hand. Realisation is slow on their faces when they see Vanessa and Frank smiling up at them. Chas groans when it hits and he watches as his mums smile drops.

“This is the last thing she needs.” She grounds out, slapping the paper onto the table in disgust. “She thinks he’s guilty as it is.”

“Eh?” Chas blerts.

“Well it does all point to him.” His mum snaps defensively. “And she’s not coping as it is so she doesn’t need sleazy journalists putting her name in the paper and accusing her dad on half cocked ‘sources’.”

“I mean if she already thinks it’s him.” Chas shrugs at Noah, trying to get a laugh out of him. “This can’t do more harm.”

“No it’s weird.” He says, shaking his head. “She’s all angry.”

“Yeah.” His mum nods sadly, her arm wraps around his shoulders and she pulls him in, squeezing. “But she’ll get out the other side. God knows how.” He can feel her looking up to the sky, searching for something. Divine intervention maybe. “She hasn’t even cried yet.”

“What?” Noah watches as Chas gawps at his mum. “Not even a single tear.” 

“Nothing.” His mum sighs, pulling him along with her tightly. “Tracy slapped her the other day that didn’t even knock a few tears out.”

“Tracy did?” Noah pulls back to check but his mums already nodding.

“Yeah and if she wasn’t already grieving I’d be having a word myself, mind you. But I don’t think she’s coping any better than Vanessa is.” 

“Oh ‘ark at you.” Chas sing songs. “All grown up.”

“Oh haha.”

“Where is she anyway?” 

Noah tunes out his mum telling Chas that Vanessa’s in the bath and how she half hopes she’s having a nap because she didn’t get any sleep last night. Again. Instead he thinks about Vanessa bottling all of her emotions up, how she’d bitten them back and clamped them down when he talked to her the other day and how he’d seen her do it with Paddy too and how his mum was holding her the other night like she was scared she’d fall apart without her arms around her. It’s not the Vanessa he’d come to know over the last year or so. She was usually the one bleating on about them talking through their feelings, she was usually the one bringing the sun into his mums rainy day disposition.

“She’ll be alright though.” Noah nods, interrupting whatever Chas had been saying. They both turn to him, his mums mouth dropping as she waits for him to elaborate. “I mean. She’s Vanessa.” He wants to say that she’s got his mum too, that he knows she’ll be there but he swallows it down. Saying it out loud feels a bit too much like he’s testing something he’s actually grown to like. "She's got people she loves around her."

Tears spring in his mums eyes and he sees her exchange a weird look with Chas.

“Yeah.” His mum nods and he doesn’t remember her being more sure of anything before. “We’ll get her through it kid.”

**Author's Note:**

> Does this go anywhere? I'm not sure but it happened
> 
> @dinglefields


End file.
